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Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves |  | Author: Andrew Ross Sorkin
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $32.95
Buy New: $18.46
as of 3/21/2010 09:49 EDT details
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Seller: OB1S
Rating:  163 reviews
Sales Rank: 160
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 624
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 2
ISBN: 0670021253
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.9730931
EAN: 9780670021253
ASIN: 0670021253
Publication Date: October 20, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780670021253 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in Americaâs financial history by an acclaimed New York Times Reporter
Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the worldâs economy.
âWeâve got to get some foam down on the runway!â a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the worldâs financial system would experience.
Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re-creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing never disclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle. This true story is not just a look at banks that were âtoo big to fail,â it is a real-life thriller with a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
 Definitive book on the financial crisis March 18, 2010
MYD (Chicago, IL United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Excellent. Sorkin's hard work pays off in this well-sourced and well-written account of the financial crisis. A captivating and eye-opening read.
You won't put it down... March 17, 2010
G. Hoglund
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As someone who worked at both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers when they fell, I thought this book was excellent. It kept me very interested, I didn't want to put the book down. It gives you a good window to the behind the scenes action, and provides interesting color on what key Wall Street players think of eachother. I have already convinced a handful of friends to read it.
 Good overview, terrible editing March 17, 2010
EB
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
A comprehensive narrative of the specific events within different banks and the U.S. Treasury that led to the crisis, but very uncritical and light on analysis (perhaps unsurprising if Sorkin is counting on these sources for future columns and must avoid pointing fingers) and rife with editorial errors, from missing punctuation and misspellings to sentences repeated wholesale. These *might* have been forgivable in a hardcover edition that was rushed to publication, but they should have been fixed in the paperback edition. The editorial sloppiness calls the accuracy of the reporting into question.
The breathless tone of the narrative gets old after a couple of hundred pages, as does the sexism that permeates both the industry and the writing. The book leaves the reader not with a sense of tragic heroes confronting global crisis (as the closing page of the narrative attempts to suggest) but of overgrown, spoiled kids whose old-boy networks, expensive toys,* and sports metaphors eventually broke down and left them--and the rest of us--in the muck.
*Why always BLACK cars?
Reads like a (great) thriller March 16, 2010
wbjonesjr1 (São Paulo, Brazil)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was amazed by "Too Big To Fail". To me Scorkin pulled an extraordinary journalistic/literary feat. The reasons:
a) Pace: the book reads like a thriller. And it keeps the reader riveted even when the outcomes are known. I believe this is because Scorkin focuses strictly on the human side (therefore no momentum is lost on technical stuff) and because of the technique of shifting rapidly (with incredible adroitness) from one context to another.
b) Balance and fairness: the "cast of characters" is depicted fairly. The CEO's and government officials behave as human beings with failings and strengths. This may seem trivial, but read the recently released "Gods at War" and you will see extremely successful businessmen (e.g. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer) judged lazy or greedy with little evidence for such judgement. In "Too Big.." even the (potentially) "bad guys" (e.g. Dick Fuld, Lehmann CEO) comes across as fairly portrayed.
c) Clarity: the book is really "easy to read". Scorkin writes in simple language with simple sentences about things we can all understand.
d) Empathy: the fundamental subject matter of the book, that is, the immediate reactions and feelings of people under pressure and in power struggles is of universal interest
A phenomenal and unique effort, really deserving of the accolades
The go to book on the inner workings of the financial crisis. March 16, 2010
R pete (los angeles, ca)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I cannot recommend this book enough. Sorkin does an incredible job at making you the fly on the wall amidst all the drama that unfolded during the financial crisis. This is incredible history in the making and to capture the emotion and panic of all the characters making the spur of the moment decisions that will shape our country's economic health for years to come is fascinating. A must read.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
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